At Horizon Innovations, we are an innovative marketing firm that embraces the entrepreneurial mindset and empowering its people in their career development. As part of that process, the Horizon Innovations team has the ability to earn promotions that serve as milestones in their career. Joey, who joined the team in July, has become a core part of Horizon Innovations training and development team. Not only has he established himself as a go to in the company, Joey has earned several promotions, including his most recent one. We are proud to announce that Joey has earned his promotion to Corporate Senior Trainer. This means that Joey has aided several people in the company to their own promotions to Corporate Trainer and has also developed a high performing sales team. It is the step right before one earns their promotion to Assistant Manager, where they learn back office management and client management.

“Working with the Horizon Innovations team has strengthened my communication skills and has taught me how hard work can truly pay off. We have a saying within the office, ‘what we do is not hard, it’s just hard work.’ This statement could not be any more accurate.”

-Joey Lasala

Before joining the Horizon Innovations team, Joey was working at a local winery in a management position that he had advanced into. He felt that he no further opportunity there and started looking for something new. Horizon Innovations gave Joey a light at the end of the tunnel. The company didn’t just offer him a job, we offered him a career that he could enjoy for the rest of his life. There is always opportunity on the table, it just depends on who is going to put the work in and take advantage of what is presented to them.

Joey plans to use his career to continue to develop his team, to truly help people. He has learned how to analyze his team’s learning styles and skills so he can adjust his training and teaching techniques to fit their needs and best benefit them. He likes that Horizon Innovations has helped him learn how to properly conduct and prepare himself in a professional setting and that the team at Horizon Innovations was able to quickly and deeply connect with him, getting him out his comfort zone.

“The team here at Horizon quickly broke me out of my shell and made me feel like I’ve known them for a lifetime. I can honestly say I haven’t “worked” a day since joining the team. I can confidently say the endless positive energy from everyone in the office has helped me succeed in this business.”

-Joey Lasala

His greatest reflection at the company so far that will stick with him for his entire career is when his first Account Manager that he was responsible for training, Thiago, came to him and said, “The reason I love this business is because every day is game day.” Both Thiago and Joey played collegiate athletics, so this statement really hit. Everything is different on game day, the way you dress, get out of bed, brush your teeth, and your entire outlook on the day. Joey thinks of this moment as a turning point in his career at Horizon Innovations.

We look forward to seeing Joey earn more promotions and success at Horizon Innovations. Keep up to date by following the team on Facebook.

In October, Horizon Innovations‘ Assistant Manager Christopher Healy proposed to the team an idea to get involved in the community and support a great cause. The idea, perfect for the time of year, was to have a Holloween party where all proceeds went to support Operation Smile. Not only did it let our team dress up but it made it easy and fun to give back.

Thousands of children across the world are born with cleft palates and cleft lips every year. Typically it goes unnoticed in the United States because its a relatively easy and low cost surgery to fix at birth, however, this is not the case in other countries where it’s hard to cover the cost of the surgery. That’s where Operation Smile comes in. This amazing organization sponsors trips that set up camps where families can have their children examined by a doctor and surgeries to fix the issue are provided. These children not only get their smile, but the surgery can fix the complications from cleft issues such as the inability to eat or to speak.

The team at Horizon Innovations knows the power of a smile. As a small firm that provides marketing and sales to the Jacksonville community, being able to connect with our customers begins with the first impression. The team was excited to participate in the Halloween party and not only did they come for the festivities, they even helped ask patrons at The Shim Sham Room to participate as well, which they obliged. Thanks to the team’s efforts, Horizon Innovations was able to raise over $600, which will cover several surgeries!

“Organizing an event like this makes perfect sense. I did something similar last year and its a fun way to give back. The patrons at The Shim Sham Room even helped. Thank you to the management at The Shim Sham Room and it’s patrons who donated.

Horizon Innovations is a company devoted to developing human potential. We strive to help people think big and achieve BIG to improve their lives. We motivate and encourage others to achieve their own personal and professional fulfillment.We focus on developing each member that joins our team by providing clear guidance and targets that they aim to hit. One of our biggest targets that we guide our team to is expanding to new branches by becoming branch managers, which one of our team members, RJ, has accomplished this week!

RJ, a native to Crystal River, FL, grew up in the community actively involved in Baseball. He as an allstate player and after graduating from Crystal River High in 2005, he attended College of Central Florida. There he studied Criminology and focused on his baseball career. He was talented and successful enough to be drafted by the Yankees. A career ending injury, however, ended his time on the field professionally, although he still actively participates in various community sports. After graduating College of Central Florida, RJ started interviewing and found Horizon Innovations, which met his career needs. He worked diligently and quickly to meet and exceed expectations and was able to promote himself with in the company several times. He earned his biggest promotion so far this week when he earned his promotion to Branch Manager. He and his team had a great start this week in the market RJ is managing and we are excited to see what they will do.

Horizon Innovations is excited to announce that our administrative team has expanded! Heather Curry from our Account Manager team has successfully earned the promotion to HR.

Heather, who has now been with us for a year, started with the team in our entry level position. She came to us while looking for a fun and upbeat work environment. Growth was also an important factor. After starting at Horizon Innovations, Heather quickly moved from entry level to Corporate Trainer and helped develop the team. When a spot opened up in HR, she was an ideal fit.

This month, Heather is focusing on developing the new skills she has acquired while training with newly promoted Office Manager Vanessa and she is focusing on developing the new account managers we are currently seeking. In the next year, Heather will play an instrumental role in our expansion to 3 additional branches and aims to show top performance in her new role.

Fun facts about Heather:

She roller skated competitively as a child with her dream being an Olympic figure skater.

She is from Michigan and swears ‘caddy corner’ is actually ‘kitty corner’

She has never been past the Mississippi river but has been to every nook and corner of the Eastern United States.

Heather hails from Michigan and studied Advertising and Business at the University of Florida (GO GATORS!). She has immense love of adventure and all four legged, fluffy beings.

At Horizon Innovations, our primary goal is to develop our people to the best they can be. In alignment with that goal, Horizon Innovations is excited to announce that Vanessa Valenza, formerly a recruiting director, has been promoted to Operations Manager.

Vanessa started with the company October of 2014. After working with us for about 6 months, she moved to the HR position. She has been responsible for assisting RJ, Horizon Innovations’ assistant manager, in opening his branch office in the next coming months. Her goal is to assist 3 additional branches this year.

“Vanessa is great because she goes above and beyond her call of duty. She often stays later than her require hours and make sure the team is set up for success. She cares about growing the office and providing everyone with an opportunity”

-Nora Su, President

With Vanessa’s new promotion, she will have the ability to learn a few new roles. Horizon Innovations and team will be leaning on Vanessa to handle the daily operations each day. Not only does Vanessa get to step up locally in our day to day, but she has gained the responsibility to train our new Human Resources admins in the new branch offices that we plan to open up. Vanessa, in her new role, is now open to additional opportunities in the future like brand management and National Human Resources manager. The team at Horizon Innovations could not be more proud of her.

Vanessa was born and raised in Madison, WI. After graduating from LaFollette High School, she moved to Milwaukee and earned her degree in cosmetology. To help pay for school, Vanessa started working as an associate with a retail company and through her strong work ethic was quickly promoted into management. In August of 2014, Vanessa moved to Jacksonville, FL where she found her new career here at Horizon Innovations. Vanessa thrives within our enthusiastic environment and continues to grow and develop herself every day. In her free time, she can be found enjoying the Florida weather at the beach.

Every week, Horizon Innovations lets it team members vote on an Innovator of the Week. For two weeks this past month our team voted for Romina Muhametaj. With the nomination of Innovator of the Week, Romina was able to run a Friday meeting for the office. She choose to speak about her husband, who is her biggest inspiration and motivation.

Romina’s Husband, Osman, traveled to the U.S. on a student visa. He, like many foreign students, came from a poor family and he came here in hopes of establishing a better life not only for himself but also to give back to his parents. Osman was a top performing student in school and its where he met Romina. After graduating, Osman had to find a job or leave the country. Unable to do so, he ended up going back to Turkey.

Upon returning home, Osman started putting work into returning back to the United States. Like many parents, his discouraged him from going back, insisting that what he had already done was sufficient and he had no need to go back. Osman knew his goals and stuck to them. He was able to return on an intern visa and by doing so he was able to secure an engineering position and a green card. By accomplishing his goals and sticking to his plan, Osman now is able to provide not only for himself but for Romina and his future family. He was also able to buy his family in Turkey their first car and a new home. He is currently helping put his brother and sister through school. Osman inspires Romina to hit her goals and the two compete with each other to outwork each other.

Romina, who is of Albanian origin, started with Horizon Innovations last October after moving to Jacksonville. She has always had a business oriented spirit as her father was a business owner and her mother a CPA. She previously did car sales in Atlanta.

Setting goals is not only important for athletes and top trainers, but also for successful business professionals. Setting goals allows you to not only focus yourself on what you want to accomplish, but it also helps give you the motivation to actually accomplish the goal. By verbalizing or writing your goals, you’re more likely to succeed in accomplishing them and take pride in yourself for doing so.

With the New Year comes the time to reflect on the past year. 2015 was an amazing year. We went to conferences in Nashville, West Palm Beach, Toronto, and many more. We took an all-expense paid trip to Cancun. We grew as an office together through our office nights every Thursday. We took a trip to Washington DC for a charity event for Operation Smile. We went to the Soccer Armada game and went to a 1 mile water slide event. It was definitely a good year, but we will, without a doubt, blow 2016 out of the water.

Last year our revenue for our clients, was 3 quarters of a million dollars, and our goal this year is to earn $1.5 million.

Other goals for 2016:

-Represent our client and their brand with the utmost integrity and respect

-We want to expand to four additional markets in southeast Florida

-We want to be more active in the community by doing community service projects throughout Jacksonville

-We want to attend more conferences to grow professionally

-We want to take more trips to network and expand our abilities

Here at Horizon Innovations, we hope you enjoyed your 2015 year, but strive to make 2016 your best year yet filled with goals and accomplishments!